Hello friends and family,
Here is the latest news from Hungary! Language Day was a brilliant success! The students had a great time, their performances were funny and I loved watching the fruit of all my labor! The big project is complete. It opened up so many doors and relationships, Language Day was a huge blessing to them and me. My students even got me flowers for all my help! They were beautiful!
The day after Language Day I went to Cracow, Poland for Easter. It was an eye-opening experience, as I also went to Auschwitz for a day. You can read about Krakow, as well as look at pictures of Language Day on my blog (further down). Please take the time to check it out! Just scroll down. Since I got back from Krakow, all the flowers and leaves on the trees have budded and bloomed. Spring came while I was away! It is the most perfect weather, nearly 70 degrees every day! I've gotten to take some classes down to the Duna park and walk and talk with them. I love that I can do that and call it an English lesson :) My headmaster really doesn't seem to mind. Language Day was such a success, now I don't know what to do with my classes! I have to come up with some real English lessons, fun ones, to keep the kids entertained until the end of the year, which is coming quickly. I'm trying to think of some fun activities to do with them.
In the meantime, I have lots of paperwork to do. Not only do I have stacks of student papers to grade (and I have just 2 weeks before the seniors are finished!), but I have lots of applications. You see, ESI and I have agreed to part ways. Since ESI can't sign a new contract with my current school, and I will have to volunteer here, they want whatever school I work at and am contracted at to be my first priority. However, I have such a good relationship with my school and my students, that I am willing to work for the school at least twice a week for free in order to keep these good relationships! I don't want to start all over at a different school, since it has taken me nearly 2 years to get to this point. However, ESI can't sign a contract with my school if they're not paying me, and therefore, I can no longer work for ESI. So now I'm trying to stay independently. I am so blessed by all of you supporting and praying for me, I really want to keep you! To do that, I need a new missions organization with fewer guidelines and restrictions about the type of ministry I do. I think I found one called Shepherd's Staff, which is more of a missions facilitator, and I spent hours last week filling out the application, that hopefully I can put in the mail tomorrow! As soon as I know if I am accepted, I can give you information about how to continue your support, if you still feel called to do so. I hope that we can continue together in Hungary!
Beyond that, I need a part-time job to pay rent and such, and so that I am not a burden to supporters and unable to live. I am planning to move to Budapest and work there part-time at a language school, teaching business English to companies. I have an interview on Wednesday. Yikes! Scary! If I get the job, I will get paid more money than I get now, for working fewer hours! Wow! This will give me the time and the money to volunteer in Vác at my current school, which is my first priority, and not ask for any additional support from you! I hope that everyone can continue to give as much as they have been able in the past. That is my update about staying in Hungary.
Recently I have been going to a Bible study on Friday evenings in Budapest, and having a great time. It has lots of international students and working singles, everyone is in their 20's. I'm really loving getting to know everyone there and making new friends. They also have started meeting at Margit Sziget (an island park in the middle of Budapest) every Sunday afternoon after church, having a picnic lunch, and hanging out and playing frisbee. Frisbee is my favorite sport! I spent the whole day on the island on Sunday playing frisbee and talking and making new friends. That's a great thing, since most of my friends now are leaving Hungary next year, and I need some new friends who live in Budapest!
So, that's the latest with me.God bless and keep writing!
Blessings, Jo
Monday, April 16, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Miklós Vámos
Here is a guy I find very interesting.
He writes articles for Newsweek and The Washington Post. You can read his view of Hungary by going here : http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/miklos_vamos/
It's definitely worth your time.
Miklós Vámos is a Hungarian novelist, screenwriter and talk show host. He is one of the most read and respected writers in his native Hungary. He has taught at Yale University on a Fulbright fellowship, served as The Nation’s East European correspondent, worked as consultant on the Oscar-winning film Mephisto, and presented Hungary’s most-watched cultural television show. Vámos has received numerous awards for his plays, screenplays, novels and short stories, including the Hungarian Merit Award for lifetime achievement. The Book of Fathers is considered his most accomplished novel and has sold 200,000 copies in Hungary.
He writes articles for Newsweek and The Washington Post. You can read his view of Hungary by going here : http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/miklos_vamos/
It's definitely worth your time.
Miklós Vámos is a Hungarian novelist, screenwriter and talk show host. He is one of the most read and respected writers in his native Hungary. He has taught at Yale University on a Fulbright fellowship, served as The Nation’s East European correspondent, worked as consultant on the Oscar-winning film Mephisto, and presented Hungary’s most-watched cultural television show. Vámos has received numerous awards for his plays, screenplays, novels and short stories, including the Hungarian Merit Award for lifetime achievement. The Book of Fathers is considered his most accomplished novel and has sold 200,000 copies in Hungary.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Language Day Pics
Here are some pics of Language Day:
The Crowd
Judges
Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs Dancing
Backstage
Practicing
Finale Pose
Performance
The MC
My students got me flowers!!!
All these photos are courtesy of Jim Baker. Check out his website! http://www.jimbakerphotography.com
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Auschwitz and Birkenau
It's Saturday, but yesterday I went to Auschwitz on Good Friday. It was just as memorable and life changing as I'd hoped. There is something spiritual about the day, and a chance to see the place I've read ab out, that brought a lot of things home to me. I have always had a fascination with the Holocaust and since I've been in Europe I've read a lot of history about WWII. It sounds like a rather depressing fascination, but I have a sorrow in my heart for the tragedy of the Jews, and I've always felt a strange solidarity with them. I can't seem to learn enough about that time and it stirs me deeply, fills me with sadness and anger, and makes me want to be a different person. I wasn't sure who that person was until yesterday.
I won't tell you too much of what I saw. It's impossible to explain. Eventually I will post pictures, but the pictures won't show you the smell still lingering in the air, that reminded me of fertilizer on a farm. Of course we know it doesn't come from animals. I don't have shots of the inside of the buildings, where they showed us the recovered items from the storehouses of Jewish possessions. The room full of human hair that smelled like fermaldahyde through the glass. There were many pictures of Jews arriving on trains, believing they were coming to have a better life. Most of the pictures were of Hungarian Jews. I think this isn't a coincidence. I have asked Hungarians how the Holocaust affected them. After all, thousands if not millions of Hungarians just disappeared in a few short years, never to return. Gone from the face of the earth. Synagogues stand vacant and serve as reminders of the people who just vanished. "How does it make you feel?" I ask them. "I feel fine," Hungarians respond. "But they were Hungarians, your people!" "No, no, they were Jews," they say.
Did you know that the word "Jew" is still a dirty word in Hungarian? Those who hate the prime minister will graffiti "Jew" across his forehead on posters of him. You can see this at any subway station. Why do I get the feeling that if Hitler returned to take care of the tiny miniscule Jewish population in Hungary, no one would say a word? I think they would beg him to not stop there, but take the gypsies as well. When did "Jew" cancel "Hungarian"? Who will cry for them? If no one else will claim them, I will do it. I will cry for MY people. I will be Jewish. I was grafted into Israel when I became a Christian. I became a son of Abraham. That is what Paul says, yes? I am an adopted Jew, a Christian Jew. To become like Christ is to be Jewish. I am ashamed of every time someone asked me if I was Jewish and I denied it. I want to claim that solidarity as my own, and their people as my own. I will lament their sorrows and tell my students with pride of what I am, and WANT to be. I WANT to be Jewish. I don't think Christians and Catholics quite understand the brotherhood they share, and I want to tell my Hungarians (yes, I am Hungarian and American now as well) that they are in the same family. Not all Jews are Christians, but all Christians are adopted Jews. So why do so many still hate them?
I am not American first and Hungarian second, or Christian before Jewish. All of these are equal parts of me, and now I have a greater understanding of who I am. I can't wait to tell my students I am Jewish, even if adopted as one, and watch their horror and shock. I want to teach them love and acceptance. I want to introduce them to gypsies and have them make sandwiches for the homeless. I have a greater sense of identity and purpose since I visited Auschwitz. I will be a Hungarian Jew and speak for all my people who were lost, and hope to teach those within my educating grasp how to love all people.
I won't tell you too much of what I saw. It's impossible to explain. Eventually I will post pictures, but the pictures won't show you the smell still lingering in the air, that reminded me of fertilizer on a farm. Of course we know it doesn't come from animals. I don't have shots of the inside of the buildings, where they showed us the recovered items from the storehouses of Jewish possessions. The room full of human hair that smelled like fermaldahyde through the glass. There were many pictures of Jews arriving on trains, believing they were coming to have a better life. Most of the pictures were of Hungarian Jews. I think this isn't a coincidence. I have asked Hungarians how the Holocaust affected them. After all, thousands if not millions of Hungarians just disappeared in a few short years, never to return. Gone from the face of the earth. Synagogues stand vacant and serve as reminders of the people who just vanished. "How does it make you feel?" I ask them. "I feel fine," Hungarians respond. "But they were Hungarians, your people!" "No, no, they were Jews," they say.
Did you know that the word "Jew" is still a dirty word in Hungarian? Those who hate the prime minister will graffiti "Jew" across his forehead on posters of him. You can see this at any subway station. Why do I get the feeling that if Hitler returned to take care of the tiny miniscule Jewish population in Hungary, no one would say a word? I think they would beg him to not stop there, but take the gypsies as well. When did "Jew" cancel "Hungarian"? Who will cry for them? If no one else will claim them, I will do it. I will cry for MY people. I will be Jewish. I was grafted into Israel when I became a Christian. I became a son of Abraham. That is what Paul says, yes? I am an adopted Jew, a Christian Jew. To become like Christ is to be Jewish. I am ashamed of every time someone asked me if I was Jewish and I denied it. I want to claim that solidarity as my own, and their people as my own. I will lament their sorrows and tell my students with pride of what I am, and WANT to be. I WANT to be Jewish. I don't think Christians and Catholics quite understand the brotherhood they share, and I want to tell my Hungarians (yes, I am Hungarian and American now as well) that they are in the same family. Not all Jews are Christians, but all Christians are adopted Jews. So why do so many still hate them?
I am not American first and Hungarian second, or Christian before Jewish. All of these are equal parts of me, and now I have a greater understanding of who I am. I can't wait to tell my students I am Jewish, even if adopted as one, and watch their horror and shock. I want to teach them love and acceptance. I want to introduce them to gypsies and have them make sandwiches for the homeless. I have a greater sense of identity and purpose since I visited Auschwitz. I will be a Hungarian Jew and speak for all my people who were lost, and hope to teach those within my educating grasp how to love all people.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Krakow
Don't ask me why, but after all this time of not feeling like writing much in my blog, today I really wanted to post.
My friend Jim left this morning. He is an old friend from high school who was visiting me for just a few days and also shooting a documentary for some missionary friends of his in Latvia. He encouraged me and brought gifts and money! He's also a professional photographer, and he happened to be here for Language Day, the culmination of all my hard work since January, and get some nice shots of it. I can't wait to see them!
We had to get up at 5am to take him back to the airport. I got a chance to sleep for an hour and a half at Sarah #2's (not roommate) flat before we went back to the airport for our trip to Krakow.
I don't like flying too much, it actually makes me motion sick sometimes, but it's faster and usually I don't have the time because I travel just on long weekends. We took a Malev (Hungarian airline) flight, and they pampered us and gave us a free sandwich and coffee. By the time we got in the air, we were coming back down again. Budapest to Krakow is only a 40 minute flight. We got here in time to walk around and tour the city a bit.
Krakow is a little known beauty. It wasn't destroyed so bad as Warsaw in WWII, and has a gorgeous square. I'm getting quite fond of the city square's in every major European city, with beautiful churches and fountains and cafes around the center. We walked down to the Jewish quarter. I don't know what I expected to see, but it looked the same, except for some synoguages. I suppose I wanted Yiddish or Hebrew signs and stars on doorposts, but those things haven't been all preserved, and of course there isn't an actual Jewish community living there anymore. Sad, but true. So Sarah and I tried to close our eyes and picture what it might have looked like back then, but Jewish children and kosher restaurants and such. We did find a spot that Speilburg used to film Schindler's List. I asked the hostel worker where the factory was, and to my surprise he said it's nothing but an empty building now. There's not much to see. No museum or memorial, just an empty factory. So I guess we won't be visiting there, but I have a picture of an arch that was in the movie.
We went to museum in the quarter that had a montage of pictures of old synoguages and memorials in present day. In every country I visit, I always try to buy a book written by an author from that country who is famous and sort of captures my feel of the place. I bought one of Elie Weisel's books at the museum. I've read Night for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize and it's never left my mind. So I got another book by him since his work first introduced me to the holocaust and has gripped my heart ever since. That is the reason for my desire to come to Krakow at all. Tomorrow we are going to Auschwitz. I wanted to go on Good Friday on purpose. I want to hear and see and feel the suffering of the Jews and remember the suffering of my Lord. I want to weep for the loss and the love. I don't want to be just sobered and depressed by going there, but to feel God's sorrow and know why He chose to die.
Sarah and I are planning to attend two church services on Sunday. The first will be a mass in cathedral in the castle, in Latin. The second will be in English in a Protestant church planted by missionaries. The first is for the experience, the second is to celebrate and keep my focus on what this weekend is about. I want an Easter to remember for a lifetime.
Tonight we ate dinner at a Bagel/TexMex restaurant. Every time I travel, instead of eating the food of the country, I find the foods I miss the most from America and aren't found in Hungary instead. I am constantly craving bagels and tacos, so I had both satisfied in one place! If only Budapest would bring the BagelMomma from Krakow. I am much better at savoring the literature and history of a place than its cuisine.
After dinner we went to an open-air concert of a Polish folk singer who happens to be named Joanna. She sang in Polish, but her melodies were strong and passionate and lilting. She was accompanied by an accordian, some violins and cello, and random percussion instruments. I loved watching the accordian player. He was young and handsome, something you wouldn't expect, and I've never understand how complicated of an instrument it could be.
As my friends come and go to see me, and return to the States, I don't envy them. I feel I have so much at my fingertips. Listening tonight to Polish accordians, and tomorrow standing in the place where Jewish lives were destroyed and millions just disappeared from this earth, I don't wonder why I've decided to stay in Europe. I can't imagine being anywhere else.
My friend Jim left this morning. He is an old friend from high school who was visiting me for just a few days and also shooting a documentary for some missionary friends of his in Latvia. He encouraged me and brought gifts and money! He's also a professional photographer, and he happened to be here for Language Day, the culmination of all my hard work since January, and get some nice shots of it. I can't wait to see them!
We had to get up at 5am to take him back to the airport. I got a chance to sleep for an hour and a half at Sarah #2's (not roommate) flat before we went back to the airport for our trip to Krakow.
I don't like flying too much, it actually makes me motion sick sometimes, but it's faster and usually I don't have the time because I travel just on long weekends. We took a Malev (Hungarian airline) flight, and they pampered us and gave us a free sandwich and coffee. By the time we got in the air, we were coming back down again. Budapest to Krakow is only a 40 minute flight. We got here in time to walk around and tour the city a bit.
Krakow is a little known beauty. It wasn't destroyed so bad as Warsaw in WWII, and has a gorgeous square. I'm getting quite fond of the city square's in every major European city, with beautiful churches and fountains and cafes around the center. We walked down to the Jewish quarter. I don't know what I expected to see, but it looked the same, except for some synoguages. I suppose I wanted Yiddish or Hebrew signs and stars on doorposts, but those things haven't been all preserved, and of course there isn't an actual Jewish community living there anymore. Sad, but true. So Sarah and I tried to close our eyes and picture what it might have looked like back then, but Jewish children and kosher restaurants and such. We did find a spot that Speilburg used to film Schindler's List. I asked the hostel worker where the factory was, and to my surprise he said it's nothing but an empty building now. There's not much to see. No museum or memorial, just an empty factory. So I guess we won't be visiting there, but I have a picture of an arch that was in the movie.
We went to museum in the quarter that had a montage of pictures of old synoguages and memorials in present day. In every country I visit, I always try to buy a book written by an author from that country who is famous and sort of captures my feel of the place. I bought one of Elie Weisel's books at the museum. I've read Night for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize and it's never left my mind. So I got another book by him since his work first introduced me to the holocaust and has gripped my heart ever since. That is the reason for my desire to come to Krakow at all. Tomorrow we are going to Auschwitz. I wanted to go on Good Friday on purpose. I want to hear and see and feel the suffering of the Jews and remember the suffering of my Lord. I want to weep for the loss and the love. I don't want to be just sobered and depressed by going there, but to feel God's sorrow and know why He chose to die.
Sarah and I are planning to attend two church services on Sunday. The first will be a mass in cathedral in the castle, in Latin. The second will be in English in a Protestant church planted by missionaries. The first is for the experience, the second is to celebrate and keep my focus on what this weekend is about. I want an Easter to remember for a lifetime.
Tonight we ate dinner at a Bagel/TexMex restaurant. Every time I travel, instead of eating the food of the country, I find the foods I miss the most from America and aren't found in Hungary instead. I am constantly craving bagels and tacos, so I had both satisfied in one place! If only Budapest would bring the BagelMomma from Krakow. I am much better at savoring the literature and history of a place than its cuisine.
After dinner we went to an open-air concert of a Polish folk singer who happens to be named Joanna. She sang in Polish, but her melodies were strong and passionate and lilting. She was accompanied by an accordian, some violins and cello, and random percussion instruments. I loved watching the accordian player. He was young and handsome, something you wouldn't expect, and I've never understand how complicated of an instrument it could be.
As my friends come and go to see me, and return to the States, I don't envy them. I feel I have so much at my fingertips. Listening tonight to Polish accordians, and tomorrow standing in the place where Jewish lives were destroyed and millions just disappeared from this earth, I don't wonder why I've decided to stay in Europe. I can't imagine being anywhere else.
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